Freedom is never absolute. It’s always stuck to its ‘Karma’ because that alone is the churning which decides & provides either solace or further toil.
However freeing oneself from the allurements of the physical form remains the immediate hurdle.
Col Dilip Kumar Sharma (Retired)
“ ‘The Entrusted’ testing The ‘Helpless Trusting’ is a ‘Russian-Roulette’ where the ultimate losers are, ‘The Entrusted’ & never the ‘Helpless Trusting’; history of every conflict is witness to this truth – people recoup from their miseries not the leaders that led them into disaster for additional power gains or fame.” Col Dilip Sharma (Retired)
New paradigm changes are taking place in the present day internal & external conflicts. Some of the ‘developing developments’ are listed below:
Drone swarms introduced into the Russo-Ukrainian tactical battlefield in the air, sea, robots on land & bots in cyber spaces are being neutralised by counter millisecond sensing laser beams & auto sensing bots introduced to counter these by US on its assets in the air, land & nuclear aircraft carriers too, but all at sea until real battles studies of these are published.
Hyper speed (now Mach 10) missiles tested & deployed by China, Russia & Iran, are trying to be countered by US considering nuclear powered ‘Higher Intensity Few Feet Thick Laser Fleet Umbrellas’ over aircraft carriers & vital land installations, increasing size on the flip side.
Depleted Uranium conventional Armoured & Artillery shells & bombs have found currency again after the US-Iraq war, but now against equally enabled adversaries, not a WW-II Bedouin Groups masquerading as a modern Army.
Artificial Intelligence operated pilot-less aircraft & similar anti-aircraft weaponry & missiles are the latest discoveries in the ongoing Russo-Ukrainian battles, as Ukrainian’s own & Black-Ops Multinational filmy ‘Rambo-Mercenaries’ reach redundancy faster than the developing technology & depleting economies.
Narcotics, Counterfeit- Currency, Food, Water, Oil & Gas & every important resource with much needed succor like Regionalism, Religion, Charity, Communication Languages, agriculture, Stock-Markets & Commercial Markets as well as ‘Leaders’ Egos’ have been weaponised to soften targets from within and prepare them into capitulation through dissent & insurgencies, without an open external aggression & war.
“The most dynamic theatre of defence is the intelligence that can herald & deploy change faster than the capabilities of adversaries as well as employ intellect to gain economic sustainability without developing newer ‘white elephants’ that will surely be buried in the quick- sands of times as fast as they seem to be emerging & eating into progress & peace.” Col Dilip Kumar Sharma (Retired)
-Col Dilip Sharma (Retired)
Festivals & Exploiters
Today in some cases & very subtly, messages on festivals are hijacked to convey and muster the adverse & obtuse to widen regular fissures in societies into fervent dissent & insurgencies.
Basically the World was, & in majority, remains a collection of agrarian societies with a lot of labour, less returns, simplistic living and unawares of devious ways of political or other power plays.
These societies have also always been the much in demand bulk that shift power from one to another competitive power brokers – political, monarch, democratic, religious or any other kind.
Seasonal changes were worked for by these agrarian societies- cleaning the remains of the previous season & preparing for the next agricultural season, these were inter-laced with various faiths & veneration of various deities, historic or ancient handed down traditions that added to the collective disciplining of and providing a moral compass for societies to live on and work in for the future, making each society across the Globe self-sufficient from basics of administration, to collective security, and philosophies that work even today for the best results in their locales !
This labour was converted to celebrations & over years to festivals to ease work with fun, frolic & building relationships & alliances.
This has been happening since eons before any power broker as a ‘ruler’ or ‘religion’ even started their congregations and this process would continue even if all ‘power brokers’ or ‘religions wishing to expand congregations’ were to somehow vanish one day!
Since agrarian people started living as societies, organisers, administrators, rulers, opposing leaders, competing religion, etc used these events to spread their messages and herald positive or other changes in their societies, areas, states & nations, for better or worse etc because ‘between seasons’, was the time when populations were free, available & happily receptive too.
Today too these ‘events’ & ‘occasions’ are still used for good or worse, depending on who the propagators are.
Basic test of the Good & the Bad, is in whether the – ‘Messages of Amalgamation of Society for the Good of All’ versus ‘Messages for Amalgamation of Some for Opposition of Others’.
To adverse Intelligence agencies all religious festivals across the Globe, are good ‘Exploitation Tools’ too.
In today’s times of ‘Regime-Changes’, ‘Proxy-Wars’, ‘Resource-Domination’ & conveniently & deliberately ‘Defaulted-Peace-Agreements’ to shift World-Order one or the other by nudges or frank threats of armageddon, it is necessary that the innocent ‘Bulk & Mass’ of humanity, in whose behalf & stated benefit these ‘Ruler-To-Preachers’ are purportedly churning the existing ‘used-to’ World order, must be aware of all machinations, while they go about their lives in happy celebrations.
-Col Dilip Sharma (Retired)
dilipksharma@hotmail.com
Please Note:
Views are personal and not directed against any particular religion, society, class category or caste of people at all.
This is basically a security assessment
By-
Colonel Dilip Kumar Sharma (Retired)
A secure country has an abundant economy that accrues from tax-paying private & public business houses, as much as from other sources & thus all businesses are, national assets in a sense.
Nations frame flexible rules & laws to reign in & keep businesses within the limits of national security and also as it varies from time to time, in the interest of all stake holders.
Beyond national interest, all Politicians, Political Parties, Autocrats, Monarchs, Communist Leaders all benefit from businesses in every country.
However for power retention & public consumption, facilitation fees to Government officials become bribes & kickbacks, personal & political party gains become scams and manipulation of national systems to suit a particular business house over others, is in any case treason.
However by its very nature business is to, profit from evaluation, estimation, speculation & exploitation within set compliance rules.
Every competitive business transaction has a winner & a looser while non-competitive transactions can make all sides, winners.
Today, in a World where the economic order is in a churn, all & most transactional dealings are not just competitive but very combative.
Competitive power politics & national security concerns can force opposing sides to easily, overtly or covertly realign status or throw a spanner in the good run of deemed opponents to gain advantage, by exploiting any or many business deals & transactions through a forensic scrutiny scrub to affect stock ratings & brand values long enough to make a quick buck, reduce investor confidence or for other gains.
The sabotage of Russian submerged Oil & Gas Pipelines the most blatant of such examples and a overt act of war, while rumours of the present US President gaining through his son Hunter Biden & former UK Premier gaining through his brother are the direct covert examples in the case in point.
The sanctioning of individuals, business, NGO, Government and other institutions as well as complete countries selectively is another case in the point that confirms strategic Governmental interests played out through seemingly unconnected players who take the rap in case of a fall out, like shell companies, but professing higher moral grounds all along with the highest ‘democratic’ norms!
Pfizer’s Covid vaccine’s entire research, manufacturing & market roll out through US Government & private Companies is another such covert profiteering scam perpetuated on its own people that Indian Forensic Auditors must take up to derail American investor’s confidence in the Pharma Giant!
Canada’s stocking Covid vaccines of different kinds was another such ‘market war’ strategy aimed at either testing, frustrating the manufacturers & thus providing a selective vaccine better chance in the market or to deny other needy nations while absorbing & stocking a affordable glut!
Forensic accounting audits of Western Companies in Ukraine before & now during operations will pale all scams as will such audits of corporates involved with any direct & more so proxy conflicts since WW-II across the Globe.
Holiness and chastity is always subject to economic and market greed.
There are no saints in the market place.
Faith, smaller businesses and competitive & aggregate norms, for ease of business are the only actual losers as environs are made more stringent to prevent future exploitation by the more resourceful, thus slowing economies.
Hindenburg’s, Adani take down, is not the first nor will it be the last business spats fuelled by ‘International Political & Security Power Play’, witnessed as India Inc. gains & drives Indian Economy & self-sufficiency, ‘Atmā-Nirbharta’, in a churning of the World economic order as all security systems undergo a reshuffle & realignment with India sitting on the fence.
PM Modi’s, ‘Atmā-Nirbharta’ story is reminiscent of US President Roosevelt’s ‘War Production Board’ & reining in US Automobile giants to help in WW-II, a move that has resulted in US Private-Public Defence Innovation & Manufacturing that has made the USA the Super Power it is through the Cold War and it’s confidence to short change regimes actoss the Globe!
Lessons learnt should be to encourage a multitude of business houses to operate simultaneously & coordinated to rake in as much business from actoss the Globe as possible to prevent a single ambush derail national growth trajectories.
Brace for more such spats, as AI takes center stage & more detailed scrutiny & lethality is possible; but together please- such discourse also has the potential to fuel internal dissent & wars, with similar affects.
Colonel Dilip Sharma (Retired)
dilipksharma@hotmail.com
Author: Colonel Dilip Sharma (Retired)
PEEKING INTO BEIJING’S CORNER
If the pronouncements of the Chinese foreign minister Mr. Wang Yi are any indication along with the state of rampant Covid situation and of failing economy, then it can be tentatively said that China is on the back foot from its usual belligerence.
Recently in a telephone conversation with Mr Anthony Blinken, Mr Wang Yi is reported to have told his counterpart to “….stop this talk of containing China and rather work towards cooperative projects…”.
Couple this with Mr Wang Lee’s statements about India where he has reportedly said that “…China is always open to working with India if it has a sustained long term & sound growth of relationships…”.
Mr. Wang Yi has also stated words to the effect that “…China has been always for peace, talks and negotiations in the Ukraine war…”!
All these statements are a tremendous come down from the Saber-rattle that China has engaged the US & India along with other NATO allies for months since the onset of the Ukraine war until just a few weeks ago.
So, what has caused such a climb down?
The present Chinese economy and the COVID situation has left China with precious little space to continue on its planned economic trajectory, leave alone engage in any kind of forced into or self initiated wars or skirmishes.
China has realised that even starting a war or skirmishes just to divert attention of its population & opposition to the CCP within the country will spiral out of control and will wreck the Chinese economy even further for a very long time because the end of such skirmishes or war will no longer be in its hands at all, while the other side that is the US-UK and their allies will benefit from such aggression as they seem to be doing in the Ukrainian war.
The Chinese strategy seems to be to put all issues like the Taiwan, South China Sea and the Tibetan Plateau (I would like to call it that rather than and Indo-Chinese conflict) on the back burner for the present and look for an opportune time to bring them up again later, while continuing to build infrastructure and defences as well as offensive capabilities in the areas of concern as such as in opposite Arunachal-Pradesh and Ladakh as well as Central and Southern Tibet; similar activity seems to have been continuing opposite Taiwan and Vietnam apart from China dealing with the South-China-Sea, Pacific and Indian Ocean Island states diplomatically for the same intent.
American strategy to keep all sides guessing and benefit from all disruptions of existing order helps its own economy develop through ‘Black-Operation-Contracts’, sale of Arms & Ammunition etc military hardware & software to areas of conflict is its most important arsenal, that seems to have forced China into it’s present rethink apart from its own failings within its borders.
On the whole while the ante has been hiked, there appears to be a lull before China is able to shore up its economy to back up it’s aggressive designs demonstrated in the past year.
Japan, Taiwan, Philippines, Vietnam and India need to be prepared for continued Chinese belligerence in their regions for a longer period of time without an war for the immediate time being.
However a war cannot be ruled out with much higher stakes, as weaponry and arsenal keeps piling up on both sides of all these borders and as growing international attention, especially NATO, is drawn to the South-Asian and Indo-Pacific region – The region to be exploited by the West after Europe in WW-II, South & Central America through drug war fuelled insurgencies & the Arab Nations in the multitude regime change insurgencies.
Whether it will be the Chinese or the West taking these regions for a hike is unclear but yes, we have to be prepared for a ‘hike’ in international aggression.
A lot will depend on how economic slicing of the resources in this region, that is Indo-Pacific oceans and the South-China-Sea, will be managed by the kinds of Dr. Jai Shankar, Mr. Wang Yi, Mr. Antony Blinken, Mr. Sergey Lavrov etc, their principals & economic planners.
Interesting times to watch.
Colonel Dilip Sharma (Retired)
dilipksharma@hotmail.com
7719001133
Comments On: Kaveri Bamzai’s Article- “Can Bollywood rollback the Southern Juggernaut?
-Col Dilip Sharma (Retired)
Bollywood is suffering from of major disease for one, it’s lead stars are very old men playing teenagers and for a second, the writers & the directors are using the same masala over & over again, now to the point of predictable boredom.
They pass it off by calling it “creative freedom” and challenge the audiences not to see the movies if they don’t want to!
This confidence comes from the fact that, at the weekend or after days long work, when people want to have entertainment and some relaxation with laughter, they prefer seeing masala movies that is with some song & dance, some like humour and maybe even slapstick cheap humour, especially after Kapil Sharma found favour of his audiences.
The ‘Southern Juggernaut’ as, Kauvery dubs the movies produced all over South India, have or rather are unique to the audiences in the North & the West. They also have better sets, more creative graphics & special effects.
However we must notice that the ‘Southern Juggernaut’ is also mostly rooted in Indian traditions & customs apart from the slapstick.
Bollywood will not recognise the above for reasons of ‘BollywoodIan Economy, Commerce & Funding’ which is a far too serious aspect & needs to be discussed as an legal offence rather than lack of creative & artistic talents or fervours here casually.
Bollywood is also too egoistic to rather learn from their movies promoter & advertiser Kapil Sharma which inspite the cheap tricks & puns, ‘The Kapil Sharma Show’ is unique every time, each episode is fresh, inspite it’s puns & jokes are equally good and that ‘mix’ makes Kapil Sharma a better director, story writer or a producer of the short show, then maybe even the ‘BollywoodIan Karan’ who is living an aging, stale & predictable ‘Johar’, while stuck in his known routines flavoured with the same masalas closeted in his decades old cabinet.
Finally the scandals of sexual- harassment, sexual-exploitation, drug-abuse and most of all the anti-national, anti-traditional & anti-cultural subtle innuendos and hidden double meaning abuse with which Bollywood has portrayed the ‘Indian-ness’ of its audiences within & beyond Indian borders are also a major factor for Bollywood losing its lustre.
Now this aspect will not be accepted by either the Bollywood directors, its hot-stars nor ‘Bollywoodian’ journalists & others who subsist on its financial train and trail which originates very deep from within the underground caravans of sleeze & crime, however the fact remains that honey attracts flies and money attracts the underground, who in turn are used by intelligence agencies for their own nefarious designs while the intermediaries make hay.
Now what came first the ‘Bollywoodian’ artistry and talent or big underground money and sleeze is also not a debatable thing, it is obvious that somewhere in this 80s the entire financing and producing of movies underwent a massive change and that was the point of infliction and today’s producers and directors are direct beneficiaries of those times, when in the late ‘70s & ‘80s they were struggling to make their mark or fill in the shoes of their narcissist fathers and mothers.
Those, Ma’am Kaveri Bamzai is, in my opinion are the reasons why the nation at large, is turning to the ‘Southern Juggernaut’ and shedding ‘Dirty Bollywood’ faster than an athletic, emerging & more aware Indian will change socks, though as seen on the street, that (wearing socks) is also soon becoming a matter of the past.
Bollywood ‘Biggies’ have to shed old skin, unusually greying-matter and stale spice & style, but also the most difficult – they have to get rid of their underground financiers without getting killed by the mafia for knowing too much.
Col Dilip Sharma (Retired)
Perceptions on the LAC are very clear to both sides.
It is the Chinese that are rattled & are adapting an aggressive posture to claim more than the agreed.
Apart from attempts to divert attention from the internal turmoil & the dire economic state at the street level, rejection of Chinese overtures by India, participation of India in QUAD & its indirect but implicit connection to AUKUS & NATO as well as the recent presence of US troops exercising with Indian Army along the LAC in Uttrakhand, Assam & presence of British Navy in Bay of Bengal are all responsible for Chinese disquiet and hence such transgressions.
Additionally, with India’s ties with Russia, Japan, Vietnam & Indonesia in addition to France all growing independent of US, UK, Australia there is a major inbuilt deterrence to large scale misadventures.
Meanwhile India balances off it’s diplomatic & other aggression towards China by allowing it enough and more room for economic activity in its dire fiscal state.
Therefore, presently this Chinese transgression can be seen, either as local aggression to fortify positions & posture for tougher negotiations, or though unlikely, in the extreme case as purely sustained ‘nibbling expansionism’ that it is famous for.
Meanwhile & in any case given Indian relationship with Russia & rejections of US sanctions leading to Pentagon viewing India to be a fence sitter, the ongoing US-China strategic parleys will have to be watched very carefully just as India will be watching the on-off US-Pakistan romance and Pakistan’s mercenary use given the new hardline COAS who given his background will be itching to make a place for himself in history & will be open to Pentagon’s machiavellian mechanism in the run up to the next Presidential elections or establishment of a new World Order with US-UK-Allies at the center stage a project, that is threatened by India’s multipolarity and multiple countries preferring that mode of economy & power share instead of the bi-polar World that’s brought the Globe to the present state, from where it will take time & expenses to emerge as drastically low returns on huge investments loom over the horizons.
Larger limited aggressions & offensives may be ruled out given the economic situation across the Globe.
How far any direct Chinese physical involvement in any conflict across the Globe will help Chinese burgeoning & already troubled population, it’s economy or collective futures of CCP & Xi Jinping is clear, such involvement would be their last straw, because they may start it but it will spin out of their control and only the World will decide the end.
Interesting times to watch.
Col Dilip Sharma (Retired)
Colonel Dilip Kumar Sharma (Retired) The Fore-First Gorkha
#TourofDuty #IndianArmy #IndianNavy #IndianAirForce
“Securing a mixed society of a spectrum extending from the medieval to ultra modern in a politically divisive nation, that’s open to all sorts of foreign exploitative allurements, is equal only to waging a war within, before facing the enemy at the borders or elsewhere in space!” Col Dilip Kumar Sharma (R)
The Indian nation is undergoing a major churning.
Delayed real time pragmatism in defence preparedness, has been systematically martyred at the alter of greed, cocooned & silked over in fake statesmanship, dividing everything possible, for political heft & continuity rather than pragmatic security needs, since 1947.
It’s almost as if the ‘Polity-cum-Bureaucratic Nexus’ has been mortally scared of their own capability to trust the ‘intent’ of their own military, the top brass of which has left no stone unturned to suck up to the political masters in the most servile manner, even to the extent that has endangered their actual bonded duty to the nation.
The above, three factors have left India without a clearly defined Defence Policy in a very tumultuous & hungrily competitive vortex of World Order interplay, in which India has also chosen to remain neutral.
The Indian Defence Forces, have within themselves, been largely untouched by the heat & dust of political storms since independence. They have been steadfast in their loyalty to the nation & Governments, have very credibly kept all external threats at bay, with rudimentary ‘previous generation’ weaponry, equipment & a rapidly fading allure to the present day youth who for obvious reasons, prefer to enlist & try rolling dice with white, brown & blue work forces in MNC’s, Corporates & Skilled Labour Forces bound for foreign shores rather than ‘Serve the Nation’ – that has become an unfashionable cliché, about which the ‘Political Leaders’ too seem to have had little sentiment since 1947 unless it suited their political aims.
The seclusion that the Indian Defence Forces enjoyed is under severe threat in a rapidly changing environment with highly increased expectations of the Indian civilian youth that forms the majority of the population, rapid urbanisation & globalisation, pitted against rising costs of defence procurements & reducing defence budgets for what was seen as a ‘White Elephant’, till the reality of remaining un-aligned in a Global war of dominance of resources, markets & regime changes by illogical internal insurrections in the form of protests etc, have hit the comparatively honest Indian policy makers hard, only because they seem to have discarded easier options of aligning with one or the other super powers, with compromised lands, resources, markets or securities of all other kinds & thus, the future.
The above coupled with each new ‘Regime Change War’ & other wars by Super Powers & their proxies, have shifted all existing paradigms of weaponry, tactics & strategy and seems to have baffled generations of delinquent political masters who chose to know the Indian Defence Forces, only from the pomp, pageantry of ceremonials & wars won in history, as deliverers of results, despite all shortages & without the need for funds to prepare for future wars!
With the USA & the West having very clearly shown their intent in Ukraine against Russia, economically, financially, socially & militarily after many such regime change proxy wars across the Globe in the past & clearly preparing to go head long into clashes with China in the South China Sea & the Indo-Pacific, while China too having usurped the very souls of nations rimming the South China Seas, Asia, Africa & even Europe in ingenious ways, both USA & China are waiting to see the Indian stance to unleash their war on India, internally by funding & strategising dissent & rebellions, externally by allowing nibbling of borders or using all military & other means at the borders to redraw them for their own Super power resource & strategic area domination aims for their own futures.
As the Indo-Pacific International arena of conflict becomes a reality in the Superpower resource & logistic domination shadow boxing, it throws up newer challenges to peninsular India as never before. Coastal India & its seas extending from its Exclusive Economic Zones to as far into the blue oceans as required to keep prophylactic competition at bay, will need adequate human resource, weaponry & equipment at unprecedented scales, which could be at least three times of what exists in the Northern, East & Western Indian borders, together.
Assessing threats to India along the land borders, coastal India & foreign fueled dissent within the country, even as Communists, Dalits, Khalistanis, Muslim & Khalistan separatists, Lingual & regional separatists all, aligned with the principal opposition, or a belligerent Pakistan working as a conduit for USA-UK or China is mind boggling to say the least.
Honest political leaders any where in the World with their honest bureaucrats will surely be at a loss at the dredged catharsis & voids that have to be filled in various fields, to feel secure enough to continue diplomatic parleys from a position of strength if not rattle military hardware for sheer survival as such, while dominance anywhere beyond being just a pipe dream.
The inertia of 70 years that’s pilled up to criminal halting of any progress towards secure futures, is a humongous task for any Government inheriting this state, to make sense out of and then also convert the situation to a launch pad, to prepare for immediate security threats in the next five years or decade, a period that is sure to push India into one or more international armed conflict arenas, whether actively or tacitly, as never before and will definitely force India to have tangible ultra modern military forces, as deterrent enough to be taken seriously in economic & diplomatic business forums and a military tangibility beyond the emotional rhetoric.
The enormous amounts of defence purchases ranging from, the conventional weaponry & equipment, to strategically deploying military technology in space on one hand, placing large orders of military hardware on first time Indian manufacturers and committing hugely in defence related research & development projects in civilian industrial facilities, for futuristic self-sufficiency ‘Make In India’ drive, indicates clearly that the present political leadership is at least, seized of the challenges & is not looking the other way. Rumors of increased nuclear stockpiling may not, in this light not be entirely unfounded.
How many of the preparations in India are guided by sheer intelligence assessments or ground realities, is unclear in the shifting & misty messaging to India by both Russia, China & USA.
How much will India be able to align with any of the super powers, how much will India prepare or find solutions to, whilst itself being caught up in the cusp of, spending for financial returns on investments, or expenditure on security with stability alone, as the accruable profit, is does not seem to be lost on the policy makers in these diplomatic & political pre-hostilities haze.
However the one thing that India does not lack is existing manpower which has the potential of becoming unmanageable if it is added to the unemployment figures of expat Indian refugees that may flood India from hostile foreign lands if & when hostilities begin.
It is in this background that the ‘Tour Of Duty’ starts to make sense if it is run parallelly with the existing recruitment policies & schemes with percentage variances based on the internal & external situations at any time.
It is the best bet to garner sufficient manpower in real time for the next three-10 years in short periods for the Indian Defence Forces, that are at pains to avoid a 1962 type of emergency conscription & commissioning at the last minute.
The Tour Of Duty may also provides a minimum of 80 % trained disciplined manpower to existing or Central & State Police Forces for internal challenges by the way of new Central / State Police Organisations and will be effective if officered more proactively & better.
The post Tour Of Duty mercenary tendencies will remain a concern but may also foot the bill if organised well to reduce international pressures on India to put boots on the grounds of conflicts and may also become a boon to our policy makers, though shattering traditional values of Panchsheel.
Today the Tour Of Duty Scheme is to be launched and the details will indicate how short term or long term vision our policy makers are gifted with.
Interesting to watch India deal with challenges of the 2025 & beyond as it amasses economic, soft & military power.
Col Dilip Kumar Sharma (Retired)
An Indian Army Veteran of 31 Years
Tours Of Duty
Line of Control – Two Tenures
Siachen Glacier – Two Tenures
National Security Guard- Raising & Conceptualising
IPKF
Desert Borders – Two Tenures
Borders in the Plains Of Punjab – Two Tenures
J&K Insurgency – Two Tenures
NE Insurgency
Intelligence Staff
Instructor
Dear Friends,
The Army has been called in to deal with a Medical Emergency!
We are generalists, ‘jack of maybe all’ , but definitely not masters of any, except, killing the enemy.
So how will a 22-25 year old Lt or a Capt with 30-120 men under command solve a pandemic created in a locality by the apathy of IAS, IPS, MLCs, MLAs for years on end, since 1947, that has multiplied 70 times, while actually our infrastructures and systems should have been stronger by 70 times and more?
Just by the sheer grit of integrity, dogged discipline and the spirit that says ‘
“Won’t die till the task’s done or will die trying”. Shouldn’t that actually should be common to all Indians, situations & professions?
There’s nothing else that the Army can do, except shove the reset button and allocate new resources as judiciously as they should be, and ensure implication of SOPs as they should be, provide space for positive innovation and jugaad where resources impinge, ensure discipline, & integrity of existing systems.
That’s all.
It’s the administration, planning, licensing, inspections, auditing systems that’ve created the chaos in this pandemic of highly infectious but otherwise not so fatal a disease.
70+ years of planning, building & implementing the planned, inspecting the implemented yearly, licensing projects with ancillaries (Ex-Roads with road furniture, like foot bridge, pedestrian xg, footpaths, street lights, traffic lights, etc/ Hospitals with essential supplies, oxygen, electricity, sewerage, parking, access, etc), auditing periodically, have all gone down the drain?!
That, friends is the actual and worse pandemic irrespective of the politics.
Sold out media and media ‘managers’ have dived in to make a quick buck, both ways- for and against the system to hysteria levels.
We the common people are equally to blame, for tolerating bullying, not complaining against corruption, accepting mediocrity and status-quo for 70+ years.
Time to revive integrity as ingrained in us by our mothers, scriptures, folklore, culture and be brave enough to at least open up and speak up & to stand up and be counted in the desire to remove nuisance and revive that value which makes us human and better Indians – Integrity.
Long post, stimulated only by the sad reportage of the very obvious in all media, sans just any apparent solutions.
Integrate, provide succour, prevent chaos, don’t be a carrier of panic, be a solution provider.
Col Dilip Sharma (Retired)
INDEPENDENT OBSERVER 